News & analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by Matthew Stiegler

Two new opinions

Judge Bibas has been a judge for only about a year, but his opinion-writing style already is instantly recognizable. Radical clarity, with lots of short sentences. I can’t think of any other circuit judge who could have written this introduction:

A non-lawyer “immigration expert” advised Dieuland Jean Louis that he could miss his asylum hearing without consequence. I App. A6-7. So he did. But the “immigration expert” was wrong—and an immigration judge relied on Jean Louis’s absence to order his removal in absentia. Id.

Jean Louis now contends that we should reopen that order because the non-lawyer’s advice qualifies as an exceptional circumstance. But that is not the law. Exceptional circumstances must be grave and beyond the applicant’s control. And holding the hearing without Jean Louis did not violate due process because he had the opportunity to attend. He chose not to.
So we will deny his petition for review.

Joining Bibas were Greenaway and Shwartz. The case was decided without oral argument.

The Third Circuit today rejected Pennsylvania’s argument that it was entitled to attorney’s fees for its work in derailing a hospital merger, concluding that the basis for the state’s win was a federal statutory provision that did not provide for attorney-fee recovery. The opinion ran a brisk 18 paragraphs, which is less than a paragraph per lawyer listed in the caption.

Joining Nygaard were Shwartz and Rendell. Arguing counsel were Howard Hopkirk for Pa. and William Coglianese of Jones Day for the hospitals.